Sonatina by Kabelvsky: Coordination Between the Hands

      

  

Dimitri Kabalevsky

    
     My adult student brought this familiar foray into classical style a la the 20th century. He stumbled often, but not always, at the two scale passages, G minor as shown here (Ex. 1), and the same passage on C minor a few measures later. Notice that nothing could be more innocent harmonically: a G melodic minor scale over a first-inversion arpeggio, also G minor: 

Kabalevsky Sonatina, Op. 13, No. 1, Third Movement

Reliable fluency, however, eluded my student. So, we set out to solve this mystery.

     Two issues are in play here: the musical objective and the 

technical means. I know, I know. What else is new? I point this out because my student fell victim to the musical objective as indicated in the score, trying for a whoosh without feeling the milestones along the way. 

 Step one is to notice which fingers of each hand are partnered and encourage them to cooperate by feeling a down together. Do this very slowly. (I've indicated these fingerings in Ex. 2.) Feel these pairs first on each eighth. Then, moving on to step two, feel the pairs on each quarter—still very slowly. Then comes the crucial third step: Notice the pair of fingers on the downbeat of measure two. Aha! This is not the beginning of the scale. Feel a secure starting place here. Gradually work up the tempo feeling, though not necessarily hearing, the pulses. Go ahead. Try it. It's fun.
     I'm happy to report that my student was able to solve the issues in the lesson. I sent him home, though, having elicited a promise that he will continue to practice along the same lines.
     

Leaping To and Fro: Rachmaninoff Prelude in G Minor

 

    My colleague in the English department had a framed cartoon on the wall over his desk. A cowboy rushes out of a saloon, the swinging doors flapping. His eyes widened in panic, he runs toward a horse hitched at the trough. The caption reads: "And he ran from the saloon, jumped onto his horse and rode off in all directions."

    I think of this image every time a student brings in a leaping problem, one that requires leaping to and fro at a quick tempo. More often than not, when there's a problem, it's because the muscles that

propel the hand in one direction haven't had time to release before going back in the other direction. Repeated over several bars, this can add up to considerable discomfort. Just as the English student needs to learn to organize his thoughts, we pianists need to organize our directions. We can't go two directions at once. The answer is simple. Only go one direction at a time. ("Sir, this is a one-way street." "But, officer, I was only going one way!")

    Okay, okay. I hear the grumbling. This is about grouping. One way to organize groups is to start from the heavier to the lighter. Chord to single note, for example. Then, use the single note as a springboard to land back on the next starting chord. By springboard I mean something like a diving board that propels the hand to the next place, a passive motion that allows the hand to let go for a split second. By using the chord as the organizing factor, the playing mechanism won't feel as if it's going in two directions at the same time. Notice, too, that the left-hand leap is farther than the right, so it will move first.

    As I reviewed the video, I noticed I didn't start "in" as I recommended. I felt this as a greater distance than it needs to be. So, do as I say, not as I demonstrate. Also, when leaping to a place directly in front of the torso, lean slightly away, in this case to the left in order to avoid twisting at the wrist.

Arensky Variations Transcribed for Piano Duet

  

Anton Arensky

    I recently posted information about my transcription of Anton Arensky's "Variations on a Theme of Tchaikovsky." Some piano folks are understandably not very familiar with this Russian composer from the Romantic era, as he did not write extensively for piano. So, here is a recording of the original version for string orchestra:

Listen here: Arensky Variations 

Explore here: 

Arensky Variations Piano 4 Hands

Chopin Nocturne in D-flat, Op, 27, No. 2: Pesky Melisma

     

When I was a mere lad, my teacher assigned Chopin's Nocturne in D-flat, Op. 27, No. 2. It was a favorite of mine and I was eager to study it. All went well until that pesky melisma near the end. You know the one I mean—the one that tends to jam in speed when the hand gets out of synch. Somehow,  the passage worked for me most of the time, but I was never happy with it until years later when I understood better what was at stake. I was reminded of this recently when a student appeared with his hand out of whack from having struggled with it. It was my job to help him smooth it back into shape. 

    Notice that the music changes direction with every note. This is a job for forearm rotation, our fastest movement and one that our bodies are designed to do easily and forever—well, a very long time. The hand will lock and the notes will jam if each note doesn't get its full attention, if the weight isn't transferred back and forth. So, if this passage bothers you, practice slowly feeling balanced on each note before going on to the next. Notice also where the hand is in relation to the black keys; move in just before playing the thumb on a black key and back out again for successive white keys. I've added the fingering I use, all though the editor's fingering will work, fussy though it is. Click on the example to enlarge:

Chopin's Nocturne in D-flat, Op. 27, No. 2
Pesky Melisma

        Another tool I use is called grouping. If the above fingering and in/out shaping isn't enough to make the passage feel easy, consider organizing groups of four notes beginning with the C-flat. If the first note of the group is C-flat, group from the second note, the first one a G. So, G, A-flat, G, C-flat and land back silently on the next starting note, G-flat. Always land on the first note of the next group.

                                                                                Rotation

                                                                                Grouping

Broadening the Musical Experience: Piano Four-hand Transcriptions

   

Bette Davis

 Every now and then—okay often—I cite a reference with my students that dates me. I've learned, for instance, that film stars from the golden age of Hollywood are no longer in the firmament. Bette Davis (mid-twentieth century movie star) once said "If everyone likes you, you’re not doing it right.” I thought this apropos for students enduring the rigors of competitions. The most celebrated musicians that I grew up revering are at most an echo in some distant galaxy. Arthur Rubinstein was once the go-to pianist for all things Chopin. His training began, after all, in the late nineteenth century.

Arthur Rubinstein

    Sometimes I allude to other instrumental works or opera in order to make a point for students. When these references elicit blank stares, I begin to think there's something missing in the musical education. Hence my present occupation, which, admittedly arose out of an abundance of at-home time in recent months. I have been transcribing significant and engaging works, orchestral and piano, for piano four hands. The hope is that the joy that comes from sharing music with a partner will instill a broader appreciation of other genres and of larger piano works that may lie a bit beyond technically, in the virtuoso realm. These pieces are remarkably easier to play as duets, and in the process of playing them, one begins to unlock some of their mysteries. The Brahms "Handel Variations" is in the works. But available now is the "Variations on a Theme of Tchaikovsky" by Anton Arensky. 

Huh?

    This set of variations is the celebrated string-orchestra composition by one of Russia's most romantic composers, which I've transcribed for piano four hands. Here you will find idiomatic piano figures that are both easy and somewhat challenging. The variations began life as the slow movement of Arensky's String Quartet No. 2 in A minor, Op. 35, for the unusual scoring of violin, viola, and 2 cellos. Written in 1894, the year after the death of Tchaikovsky, it is a tribute to that composer. The theme is from the song "Legend," the fifth of Tchaikovsky's sixteen Children's Songs, Op. 54. Tchaikovsky's song was inspired by a poem  called "Roses and Thorns" by the American poet Richard Henry Stoddard. At the first performance of Arensky's quartet, the slow movement was so well received that Arensky soon arranged it as a separate piece for string orchestra, Op. 35a, in which form it has remained among the most popular of all Arensky's works.

    Have a look here:

Variations on a Theme of Tchaikovsky by Arensky, Piano Four Hands

A Prayer in Sound: Dame Myra Hess

    Myra Hess (1890-1965) plays her very famous arrangement of Bach's Chorale "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring." Listen and watch here: Myra Hess 

Her favorite anecdote relating to "Jesu, Joy" concerned a British soldier who whistled it on a train during the war. 

    "Are you interested in Bach?," the soldier was asked by a journalist.

    "No," he answered.

    "But you are whistling a Bach composition," the newsman insisted.

    "That's no Bach," he replied indignantly. "That's Myra Hess."

    (From Marian McKenna's "Myra Hess -- A Portrait")

1921 

I have had a life-long appreciation of Dame Myra. I first heard her name when I was a boy of ten. She was still active on the concert stage, indeed she was still playing as I approached my mid-college years. I never had the opportunity to hear her live, though my teachers often referred to her—she was a presence in the musical world.

   

    As an adult, I became aware of her heritage—she
had been from the age of twelve a pupil in London of Tobias Matthay and it was under his supervision that she made her professional debut at the age of seventeen with Sir Thomas Beecham in the Beethoven Fourth Concerto at the Royal Albert Hall. Matthay is credited with the observation that the forearm is of primary importance in efficient piano technique. Watch her hands on the keys. One can't always see what's going on underneath the technique, but in her case notice how "closed" her hands are and hear the well-focused sound she produces. Dorothy Taubman was the next to take up Matthay's ideas on forearm rotation and run with them, and it's Taubman's research that informs my own playing, teaching and writing.

Lunchtime Concert

    In addition to her artistry, Hess is remembered for her bravery and public service during WWII. Because of the nighttime blackouts, she organized nearly 2000 daily 
lunchtime concerts that took place during the German blitz. These took place at the national Gallery in Trafalgar Square. During bombing, the concerts moved to a smaller, safer room. The concerts served as an opportunity for emerging artists to perform alongside established artists, including Hess, who took no fees for herself. Nearly one million people attended these events during the six-and-a-half years of the war. She personally appeared in 150 performances.

    Her students, the Contiguglia brothers, report the following in an interview: "I want to just say a few more words about turning pages for her because it was really an extraordinary experience. One experience was turning when she did the Mozart E-Flat Concerto K. 271 with the New Haven Symphony, and I remember it was a memorable performance, simply beautiful. It stirred my emotions and made it very difficult to turn, but at the end of the finale she turned to the audience, because they wouldn’t let her leave, and she said ‘you know, the slow movement of this concerto was one of the most beautiful things that Mozart ever wrote, I would like to repeat it’, and so she went and played the slow movement again with the orchestra, and then she turned to me and said ‘that time it worked’.

    "She was so human and she seemed to value the

 impression that her page-turner had from her concert. Of course, I was so moved that I wondered whether I was ever going to be able to turn pages, but I managed. I like to think of Myra Hess as being a sort of platonic ideal. You know, she represented an artistry that all the rest of us aspired to. Of course we never can achieve what she was, but it is an ideal, a platonic ideal, for me; this is the way perfection is.

Official Portrait, National Gallery

     "I remember that the last Carnegie Hall recital that we heard her perform, she did the last three Beethoven sonatas; Opus 109, Opus 110 – one sonata was just more magisterial than the next. When she finished Opus 111, there was total silence in that sold-out house, not one single clap, nobody said anything and nobody made a sound, and finally after an inordinately long time the entire audience rose to its feet, still silently, and then burst out into tumultuous applause. And that’s the effect a Myra Hess recital had, at least on an American audience."

If you have time, here's a live radio broadcast from 1946:

Dame Myra Hess & Arturo Toscanini: Beethoven Piano Concerto No.3 (pitch-corrected)

If you have still more time:

Brahms 2nd Concerto, live, Carnegie Hall, 1952, with Bruno Walter 

If you would like to hear more, select the "Listen" tab above and scroll down to the Brahms D Minor Concerto with Dimitri Metropolis.